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Zucchini the road trip takes in Haute Provence, Mantua and the Mendips

Never known a courgette glut like it. Our raised beds are Zucchini Centrale this summer. One upside of a current disinclination to travel? There have been no transitions into the dreaded marrow. What the hell can you do with those? Answers in crayon on a hessian sack, please. Soup has been one way to depopulate […]

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The Angel at Hetton stretches its wings under Wignall

Admission: I’ve got a thing about angels. From binge-watching Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire to a treasured print of Marc Chagall’s Jacob’s Dream with its striking Seraphim enmeshed in the battle between good and evil… I’m smitten. Maybe less so with Robbie Williams and his angelic vision. Still one chunk of Angel’s lyrics strikes a […]

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Black Friar gastropub – Got to get ourselves back to the garden

Exciting openings have not been plentiful of late. Now we have one. Such is the allure of the re-born Black Friar, reopening on Tuesday, July 27, not even the stormy weather heading our way can zap the al fresco vibe generated by its glorious garden. The short hot summer was at its peak when we […]

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Xinomavro and Thessaloniki – our epic Greek voyage of discovery

Wine dark sea. I’ve always loved that enigmatic go-to phrase of Homer. Hard to pin down its exact meaning until one sunset stroll along the vast esplanade of Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki. Nikis Avenue and its continuation doesn’t bother with fencing off the Thermaic Gulf. One stumble and you could plunge into Poseidon’s salty realm. […]

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Caviar – quite a scoop as I unleash my inner oligarch

There are some images that are hard to sweep from your mind. You know the sort of stuff – hypocritical politicos caught by CCTV in a ‘steamy clinch’. Etched in my cranium is that ogre of monstrous appetites, Robert Maxwell, in his eyrie at the old Daily Mirror HQ in Holborn opening a desk drawer […]

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